This week my wife passed an exam which completed her Investment Advice Diploma qualification. It has been 5 years in the making as due to growing our family she stepped back from exams for a period of time. Doing further exams to obtain professional qualifications are a fact of life in our, and many other, industries. They are still stressful though and finding time in an already busy life to study is certainly a challenge.

When I left university, I never envisaged having to sit more exams in the ‘real world’ but totting them up I have sat in excess of 20 exams since starting in the financial services industry in order to obtain Chartered status. I still have one more to do but have been putting it off.

This may sound like a negative view on exams, but I genuinely believe that bettering ourselves by taking these qualifications is an important part of improving our industry and ensuring clients get the best advice possible. It is only part of the solution though, experience, honesty and integrity are also foundations of the job as well as continuing to improve our soft skills alongside technical abilities. Being the best you is something we will continue to strive to achieve as we continue to grow the business.

As we drift back to the office, this week we finally got around to putting up our ‘Associate Firm’ of the Chartered Insurance Industry (CII) plaque on the office wall. When the business has been operational for the qualifying period, we will upgrade this to a Chartered Firm. Partnering with professional bodies and good causes remains part of our ethos at WKM and it is good to see the 1% pledge section of our website is live so we can continue to support others. Please take a look and any comments as always will be much appreciated.

On an unrelated point, Wednesday my wife and I ventured to the local pub for lunch. The sun came out and it was great to enjoy some food in the pub garden. Looking forward to more of the same in the weeks and months ahead.

Thanks for reading.